


TH E 

INAUGURAL ADDRESS 

OF 

Rev. J. A. Peters, D. D., 

IN — 

RICKLY CHAPEL, 

HEIDELBERG UNIVERSITY, ' 

TUESDAY, JUNE 16, 1891. 



THE 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS 



OF 



REY, M/PETERS, D. D. 



I N 



RICKLY CHAPEL. 



HEIDELBERG UNIVERSITY, 



TUESDSY, JUNE 16, 1891. 



PRESS OF 

E. R. GOOD & BROTHER, 

TIFFIN, OHIO. 



J S9/ 



Program of Services. 

At the Inauguration of Rev. John A. Peters, D. D., 
as President of the Literary Department 
of Heidelberg University. 

1. Invocation by Rev. H. H. W. Hibshman, D. D. 

2. Chorus by the University Choir. 

3. Prayer by Rev. John M. Kendig. 

4. The Charge and the Administration of Oath to Presi- 
dent Peters by Rev. Isaac H. Reiter, D. D. 

5. Inaugural Address by Rev. J. A. Peters, D. D. 

6. Doxology. 

7. Benediction by Rev Lewis H. Kefauver, D. D. 



RESOLUTIONS. 



The Board passed the following resolution after the In- 
augural services : 

Resolved, That the Board of Regents of Heidelberg 
University would hereby express its appreciation of the ap- 
propriate and very able address of Rev. John A. Peters, D. D., 
at his inauguration as President of the Literary Department 
of the University. 

Resolved, That we request a copy of said address for 
publication, and also a copy of the charge delivered by Rev. 
Isaac H. Reiter, D. D., President of the Board. 

Resolved, That we publish 1000 copies, or more, of the 
same in pamphlet form, and that the Secretary of the Board, 
Rev. Dr. H. H. W. Hibshman, take charge and oversight of 
tjie matter of publication. 






The Charge 



BY REV. ISAAC H. REITER, D. D., 

President of Board of Regents. 



To Rev. John A. Peters, D. D., at his Inauguration as President 
of the Literary Department of Heidelberg University, Tiffin, Ohio, in 
Richly Chapel, on Tuesday, June 16, 1891, at 2 P. M. 

The past and the present are related to each other as cause 
and effect. The events and activities of the past are best com- 
prehended and understood in the light of the present ; and the 
living issues and realizations of the present are prophetical pre- 
ludes of the future. This holds true with respect to individuals, 
nations, and institutions. 

Heidelberg College, now University, on the 13th of February, 
1891, completed the fortieth year of its corporate life, under the 
charter which bears the official authority of the Legislature and 
the great Seal of che State of Ohio. Small in its incipient be- 
ginnings, experimental in its undertakings and surrounded by 
various difficulties, yet its course of development and activity 
was steadily onward to fuller maturity and a grander destiny ! 
And today the University, having an honorable and useful ex- 
istence for nearly a half a century, merits our confidence and 
veneration by its history of trials and triumphs, by its literary 
character and achievements, and by its services to the church, 
the nation and the world. 

The annual convocation of the friends and patrons of the 
Institution, always full of pleasant memories and hopeful antici- 
pations, is at this time peculiarly cheering and inspiring in view 
of the inauguration of a new President of the Literary Depart- 
ment of the University, who has entered upon the practical du- 
ties of his office. 

The success of an institution of learning, as well as of any 
of its departments, depends largely upon the ability and adap- 
tation of the authoritative head. This is true with respect to 
the general management, and to the work in detail. Govern- 
ment, resting in wise and just laws, in order to be eflfective, 
requires to be well defined and organized, and prudently, justly 
and impartially administered. When this is the condition, there 



will be, as a result, mutual interest and co-operation, harmony 
and congeniality, order and efficiency, and prosperity and suc- 
cess. 

Honored sir and brother, you were unanimously elected, on 
the 9th of December, 1890, by the Board of Regents, as Presi- 
dent of the Literary Department of Heidelberg University, and, 
having accepted the call tendered, you are now to be formally 
inducted into office. I, as President of the Board of Regents, 
and in their behalf, have been deputed to address you on this 
interesting and significant occasion, and to charge you with 
the responsibility and duties devolving upon you. 

As preparatory to the service of induction into office, per- 
mit me to indulge in a few reflections, bearing on the general 
idea of office and duty in its relation to the position and work 
intrusted to you. 

You have been called to a high and honorable position. The 
office is one of peculiar labor, trial and responsibility, requiring 
special fitness and adaptation in regard to scholarly attainments, 
executive ability, mature judgment, decision of mind and firm- 
ness of purpose, as well as tact, affability and energy. 

Moreover, you must bear in mind that the Institution rests 
upon a broad and comprehensive basis, and is designed in its 
organization and purpose to extend the privilege and opportu- 
nity of a liberal and thorough education to the youth of our 
country. Hence you, in the capacity of President of the Liter- 
ary Department, are expected to give vigilant and diligent care 
to all its interests, to properly exercise the functions of authority 
and government, to be faithful in imparting the required in- 
structions according to the curriculum, to keep watch over the 
progress and conduct of the students, and to endeavor in all 
things to promote proficiency and prosperity. 

Also, you are to look carefully to the foundation upon 
which the educational structure is to be built ; for correct 
principles are essential to sound instruction. And all instruc- 
tion, based upon or growing out of such principles, should be 
thorough and intelligent. And such a course of instruction will 
lead, not only to a proper development of mind, but to a high 
order of genuine and expansive scholarship. 

Furthermore, as the mind is the power that conceives, 
judges and reasons, it must be trained to independent action. 
It is not enough that our young men and ladies pass over the 
prescribed curriculum, to spend time in special book research- 
es, to tax their memories to the full extent, and to ponder over 
what others have written. This is all well as far as it goes, but 
it is far from being sufficent. They must be taught to think — 



— 5 — 

to think for themselves, and to think closely, accurately and 
persistently ; and thus train the mind to habits of thinking, and 
to analyze, compare, judge and determine. This is the only 
"royal road" to profound erudition and to eminence in scholar- 
ship. The process may be slow and the work hard, but it is 
an essential part of true education. There are many professed 
scholars, but comparatively few independent thinkers, whose 
power and influence become manifest and felt in the sphere of 
philosophy and literature. For thought "denotes the capacity 
for, or the exercise of, the very highest intellectual functions, 
especially those usually comprehended under judgment." 

Education is therefore a process of drawing out rather than 
of pouring in, with the danger of superinducing mental dyspep- 
sia or paralysis. We enter the world in a state of involution, 
and our destiny here is to unfold and manifest the latent God- 
given powers with which we are endowed. Hence education 
does not imply superfluity of quantity, or the training of any 
single faculty, as memory, but the symmetrical development 
and manifestation oTall our inherent powers, whether relating 
to the intellect, or to the moral and religious elements of our 
nature. 

In this connection the subject of moral instruction in our 
Institution naturally presents itself. The spread of useful knowl- 
edge and the cultivation of intellectual refinement can not be 
substituted for moral instruction. The development of the mor- 
al nature, along with that of the intellectual, is of vast impor- 
tance to our youth. Those who enter upon a college course 
pass from under the care and solicitude of parents, form new 
associations, are beset with peculiar temptations, and need 
counsel and guidance. It is at this period that character is 
formed, and the tide of destiny started. It is therefore of the 
highest importance for the interests of our youth and of the 
Institution that "the moral training should be healthful and 
sound ; that a right guidance be given to the heart and its 
affections ; that religious principles be faithfully inculcated and 
the conscience enlightened;" and that a foundation deep and 
strong be laid for the building of moral character, which ever 
ennobles and elevates in the scale of being, and fits us for a 
life of great usefulness and a glorious destiny ! 

Indeed it may be said, without fear of contradiction, that 
a college or institution of learning without the recognition of 
moral principles and moral training, will prove a sad failure. 
It is an acknowledged fact that the most effective agency in 
preserving discipline and in securing the best results in study, 
is found in constantly presenting right and wrong conduct, good 



— 6 — 

and poor work in the class room, in their true moral light, or 
in the light of their influence on the development of character. 
And the agencies best adapted to gain the conduct and results 
desired in students, will also prove the best agencies to unfold 
their character and elevate their moral and religious nature. 
Intellectual instruction and moral training must be ever com- 
bined in any correct system of sound and thorough education. 
Thus the aim and purpose of this Institution are to educate 
the whole man, and its true ideal is the Christian scholar. 

In the onward march of mind and the progress of educa- 
tional ideas, we have entered upon a new era in the history of 
our Institutions. Much has been accomplished in the past, and 
the work, growing and expanding, requires to be further strength- 
ened, broadened and perfected. The significant motto must 
be Onward and Upward, under high endeavors, persistent ef- 
forts and generous deeds. In this the Church, the Board, the 
Faculty, the Alumni, the students and the friends of the 
Institutions will heartily concur. If we want our Institutions to 
prosper we must stand by them like men, and we shall then re- 
alize that they have many warm friends among the people 
and the citizens. Unity of feeling, mutual trust, abiding faith, 
honest pride, and earnest co-operation will do much to this end. 
And the present is a fitting time to inspire confidence, and to 
renew our covenant of fidelity and liberality. 

And we know, honored sir and brother, that your heart 
is in this laudable work of sustaining the interests of the In- 
stitution, and that under your supervision, we shall be enabled 
to unfold the banner of faith and hope, and take courage and 
go forward. 

And be assured, that in all your plans, purposes and ef- 
forts to promote the interests, the order and the prosperity of 
the Institution, you will have the confidence, the influence and 
the co-operation of the Board of Regents, and of those associat- 
ed with you in the work in hand. It is a great ^.nd grand 
work, and deserves to succeed. 

And now. Rev. John A. Peters, D. D., President-elect of the 
Literary Department of Heidelberg University, under the auspi- 
ces of the Reformed Church in the United States, do you sin- 
cerely and truly acknowledge before God and this assembly that 
the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, called the 
Canonical Scriptures, are genuine, authentic, inspired and there- 
fore divine Scriptures ; and that they are the only infallible rule 
of faith and practice? And further, do you promise that, in 
the oflBce you are about to assume, you will make the divine 
authority of the Holy Scriptures, and the truth of the Heidel- 



berg Catechism, the basis of all your instruction, teaching and 
preaching ; and that you will labor, according to the best of 
your ability, under the divine blessing, to promote the true in- 
terests and welfare of the students entrusted to your care, both 
intellectually and morally, and to guide them in the way of sound 
doctrine, as well as in all that pertains to knowledge, truth and 
righteousness ? If so, answer, "I do so promise." 

Then, as the oflBcial act of investiture of office, I now deliv- 
er to you, by authority of the Board of Regents, the keys of the 
Literary Department of Heidelberg University. They are the 
evidences of your authority and of our trust. And we pray that 
your administration, under the blessing of God, and the mutual 
co-operation of the Board, the Church, and the friends of the 
Institution, may abundantly prosper and be crowned with com- 
plete success. 




Growth through Culture. 



BY REV. J. A. PETERS, D. D. 



An Address delivered at his Inauguration as President of the 
lAterary Department of Heidelberg University, Tiffin, Ohio, in 
Rickly Chapel, on Tuesday, June 16, 1891, at 2 P. M. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Board of Regents of Heidel- 
berg University: 

"When your call to assume the Presidency of the Literary De- 
partment in this Institution reached me in December last, a 
vision of a bright and useful future for the Reformed Church, 
and the general welfare of our country, in Ohio and the adjacent 
states, seemed to arise before my mind's eye. As I endeavored to 
take in the scope of the vision, and my relation thereto, a sense 
of duty seemed to impel me to accept the call ; and during the 
past three months since I have entered upon the practical work 
of the office to which, by your suffrages, I have been so gener- 
ously called, the vision which I had, at the distance of six hun- 
dred miles, has been intensified. Without further preliminary, 
therefore, in formally assuming my office, in the ceremony of 
this hour, as, at least, somewhat appropiate to the occasion, I 
would invite your attention to the theme: 

GROWTH THROUGH CULTURE.' 

At the outset of life the human soul is but a chaos of impulses, 
a combination of streams of tendency from past generations. The 
child comes into the world a little fountain of spontaneous pow- 
er, inheriting the capabilities of its type, as also the special ten- 
dencies and aptitudes of its particular ancestors. The highest 
ideal of growth demands that these native impulses, the pos- 
sibilities of high development, which belong to man alone as 
distinguished from inferior creatures, should be brought from 
chaos to such complete order, that in the individual as well as 
in his relations to society, there shall be no chaos left, but com- 
plete unity of life only. To modify these tendencies is possible ; 
whatever evil exists may be allowed no congenial air in which 
to grow, and be practically eliminated, while the good may be 
immeasurably strengthened by a new and better environment. 
Out of that chaos, and from those tendencies has grown all hu- 



man excellence in character, .in literature, science and art; in 
institutions and civilization; in culture and refinement. At first, 
in the human soul all is formless and apparently powerless, 
yet by degrees out of vague sensation grow thought, phantasy and 
force, and we get philosophies, dynasties, poetries and reli- 
gions. How marvelous is that change! The story of growth in 
the history of the human race is a tale of fact, rivaling, yea even 
surpassing in wonder the tale of fancy in the Arabian Nights. 
Men have seen a more wonderful lamp than that of Aladdin. 
Its rays reach into the deepest darkness, and banish even the 
death-shade. Touch that lamp and angels are at your side to do 
your bidding. Place it in the huts and hovels of misery and 
poverty, and it transforms them into the palaces of princes, 
where may dwell the heirs of celestial thrones and crowns. Give 
it a place in the midst of even a pagan society, and with in- 
credible rapidity it changes the whole aspect of mankind. Robes 
take the place of rags ; virtue, of vice ; cleanliness, of filth ; in- 
telligence, of ignorance ; courtesy, of cruelty ; genuine polite- 
ness and culture, of coarseness and rudeness; health and happi- 
ness, of disease and wretchedness. Let the rays of that lamp 
shine forth, and the light thereof will, soon or late, discover 
to man the keys by which he may unlock the secret treasures of 
the kingdoms on earth, and the kingdom in the heavens. "As 
one is put into a house with many doors, all locked against 
him, and is given a bunch of keys and bid to find his way to the 
scattered and secreted treasures, so God put humanity into the 
world, setting man to house-keeping, and bidding him discover 
for himself the wealth which was stored up for his use. There 
were gold and silver and iron in the hills" for man, but for ages 
he did not know the fact ; "there was the potent fertility of 
myriad infant seed-growths in the soil," yet, although tilling the 
fields was his earliest employment, man knew not for ages all 
the resources that lay concealed in the bosom of Mother Earth ; 
"there was lightning in the clouds to run his errands, and, tamed 
and domesticated, to do the work of illumination for him," but 
no Franklin, nor Morse, nor Edison as yet to disclose the secret ; 
"there was a great giant chained in the water, whom the fire 
would at once set loose and yet harness to do his bidding," but 
no Watt had yet arisen to tell the race. By the light that, with ^^ 
increasing brightness, has shoJim from that lamp, man has groped 
his way toward civilization, and all that a complete civilization 
brings with it. "The trust is as magnificent as the responsibility 
is awful, but though man has been long in finding his way to 
the secreted treasures, modern civilization bears its witness that 
the trust which the Father reposed in His child has not been 



— 10 — 

reposed in vain. Long and slow and painful has been the process. 
But the process itself has been the making of a manhood to which 
all civilization is witness, and which is worth far more than all 
else which civilization has brought."* 

What, now, is the secret force of all this metamorphosis of 
growth? The magician's enchantments have been surpassed 
by the elevating and refining force of a truly human culture. 
In all his manifold relations man grows only through culture. 
Growth! Is it not the very purpose of all life? In every soul, 
in which mind is not confined by disease to a perpetually em- 
bryonic state, as in instances of idiocy. Divinity has deposited 
the germ of a great future. We are put here to grow. This pow- 
er of perpetual evolution is one of the chief distinctions between 
man and the lower animals. It difierentiates civilized races from 
the savage. "The latter reach a certain point of improvement 
under the influences of circumstances, and then stop. Their im- 
provement is arrested. But, in the higher civilization of Christ- 
endom no such limit has been reached, and none appears, as 
yet, in the horoscope of the future. Christian civilization ever 
forgets the things that are behind and reaches out to those 
that lie before. Each generation is born on a little higher plane 
of attainment, in science, art and social faculty, than that which 
preceded it. But, this social growth depends on individual 
growth. Every man who improves himself is aiding the growth 
of society; every one who stands still holds it back. The pro- 
gress of society always begins in individual culture. A great 
advancing jpoul carries forward the age in which he lives ; while 
a mean, sordid soul draws it back."t 

Growth! not mere movement. While all growth is movement, 
yet all movement is not growth. The terms are not synono- 
mous. "Movement, mere movement, is sporadic, individual ; it 
starts nowhere, it goes nowhither ; it has no relation to that 
which has preceded, nor any to that which is to come ; the 
man of mere movement is like a wisp of straw, that is blown 
about by every wind of doctrine. Growth is an organic devel- 
opment that holds fast to the past and presses forward to the 
future." Every successive stage of life has proceeded from a 
previous and inferior stage, and is going on to a consequent 
and superior stage. There can be no growth that has not 
a root in the past and a promise in the future. All true move- 
ment proceeds by this method of antecedent and consequent, 
the latter always growing out of the former. There is no 



*Dr. Lyman Abbott in "Signs of Promise," pp. 178 and 179. 
f'Self Culture" by James Freeman Clarke, pp. 33 and 34. 



— 11 — 

blossom on apple-bough, or peach-branch in the spring-tide that 
has not its history, at least partially, enfolded in the winter and 
autumn that preceded. And, thus, all intellectual, all ethical 
life is a growth, and true progress holds fast that which is good 
in the past, proving all things, that it may continually press for- 
ward to that which is still better in the future. The Nineteenth 
century strikes its roots into the centuries gone by, and draws 
nutriment from them. 

For a movement in humanity of this organic type culture 
is the sine qua non. It must, however, be of the genuine type. 
Otherwise you may have movement, mere movement, yet very 
little, if any, growth in the true sense. The history of the 
world is a mausoleum of movements which, in their age, had 
for their sole end ostensibly the welfare and elevation of the 
race. Their little systems had their day, and then went "glim- 
mering into the dream of things that were." Their lack of the 
elements of growth in the gradual progressive movement of 
humanity consigned all of them into oblivion save in the dusty 
tomes of the historian. Before all others, perhaps the present 
seems to aspire to the position of "the age of culture." In so- 
called refined and polite circles of society, nothing seems so de- 
rogatory to a man's reputation as to be regarded as uneducated. 
Yet, on a closer view of motives, how few comparatively seem 
to be conscious of the essential points on which a true culture 
depends. Is it not a matter of fact that a certain superficial 
refinement of manners, some acquaintance with the forms of 
good society, a little stock of ordinary phrases, and the fact 
of having, it may be, seen, or heard something of, the best 
known products of literature, science, or art, together, perchance, 
with a fashionable style of dress, form, in the opinion of not 
a few people, a sufiicient claim to the possession of culture. 
But, is that enough? Is it not possible that a man, sunk in 
the lowest depths of moral rudeness, may appropriate some of 
this outward varnish of culture and yet may have very little 
reformation of his essential barbarism? Are we, then, on this 
account simply, to consider him as a really cultured man? In 
viewing the question at this angle, we feel at once that true 
cultivation consists in real refinement of mind, and heart and 
spirit, not in merely intellectual acquirements and outward ac- 
complishments. 

In order to grasp, more fully, the idea of a true culture, I 
would follow the lead, and adopt the views of an eminent Christ- 
ian philosopher, whose profound scholarship, and reputation on 
both sides of the Atlantic, have given him the privilege of speak- 



— 12 — 

ing on this point ex cathedra* According to his view, "we call 
a thing cultured, when it is perfectly shaped, ready and com- 
plete ; when it is that which it is intended to be, and conse- 
quently completely fitted for its original purpose. So, then, the 
truly formed, or cultured, man is he in whom all natural facul- 
ties, or capacities, are thoroughly developed, so as to enable him 
to fulfill the purpose for which he has been created. 

"The next question would, therefore, be what this purpose 
is ; the nature, extent and destination of the faculties implanted 
in each individual soul, and what the end, or purpose, is to- 
ward which he should aspire. It is clear that just as any one 
places a higher or lower estimate on this task,— i. e. on the 
end, or purpose, of human life, — must his ideas of culture take 
either a higher, or lower form. Yet, in truth, what is, what 
only can be this end, or purpose? Nothing less than God Him- 
self. The Divine is the eternal prototype, in harmony with 
which man is to form himself; and likeness to God is the aim 
for which he is to strive, by perfectly cultivating and shaping 
all the powers, or possibilities implanted in him. His divine, 
psychico-moral faculties point him to nothing less than God. 
And, thus, it stands written in the forefront of divine revela- 
tion : 'God created man in His own image, in the image of God 
created He him.' No poet who ever sang of the dignity of man 
has conceived an idea of him more magnificent than this ; no 
sage ever before placed the destination of man on so immeasu- 
rably high a stage as does Jesus, the Christ, when He says, 'Be 
ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is 
perfect.' " 

True culture, then, is the realization in the individual man, 
more and more, of the Divine ideal of a generic manhood. 
Hence, man is the only fit subject for culture. When we 
speak of the culture of plants and animals, we use other ex- 
pressions, as "raising," "breaking," "breeding," or "training," 
in order to distinguish the process from the education of man. 
"Training" consists in producing in an animal, either by pain 
or pleasure of the senses, an activity, of which, it is true, he is 
capable, but which he never would have developed if left to 
himself. On the other hand, it is the nature of education only 
to assist in producing that which the subject would strive 
most earnestly to develop for himself, if he had a clear idea of 
himself. We speak of "raising" trees and animals, but not of 
raising men. The nature of genuine culture is, therefore, deter- 
mined by the nature of mind, or spirit, whose activity is always 



■:<Dr. Theodore Chrlstlieb in "Modern Doubt and Christian Belief— First 
Lecture — p. 40. 



— 13 — 

devoted to realizing for itself what it is potentially, i. e,, to be- 
come conscious of its possibilities, and to get them under the 
control of its will. The soul of man is potentially free, and edu- 
cation is the means by which man seeks to realize his possibili- 
ties, or, in other words, to develop the possibilities of the race 
in each individual. Hence ' all true culture has freedom for 
its object. This is more than merely intellectual discipline. 
That should always be the means, not the end. "Even when 
such discipline is put to its final use in the mastery of new 
truth, it is yet far short of culture in the highest sense. For 
mere intellectual activity may be vain and profitless, and earn 
at last, as with the Hebrew sage, the bitter verdict, 'all is vanity 
and vexation of spirit.' The most varied training of the reason- 
ing powers may still fail to touch the greac circumference of 
spiritual completeness. Culture, in its highest aspect, is the 
aspiration for all things that may lawfully be desired. Its aim is 
the perfect man. It is realized, not in any one-sided develop- 
ment of human nature, nor in the exclusive recognition of one 
kind of truth, but in the happy harmonious play of all spiritual 
energies, in the pursuit of whatever things are true, honest, 
just, pure, lovely and of good report. Its true source is man's 
insatiable longing to be made complete in the image of the in- 
finite perfection. 

"This complete inclusion of man's whole nature within the 
scope of culture at once renders culture vital and dynamic. It 
is not the mere perception by the mind of the true order, but 
the conforming of the whole nature to the true order. The cul- 
tivated man is not the man who has mastered truth, but the 
man who has been mastered by truth ; the man in whose soul 
the love of truth is the sovereign principle; whose inner cita- 
del of reason and desire is garrisoned with all noble, just and ra- 
tional convictions ; whose feet are swift to run in the pathway 
of gracious and magnanimous acts. Culture sucks the sweet- 
ness from all laws, from all civilization. Apprehended in its true 
meaning, all things that men should legitimately seek after are 
its ministering servants. Not mind alone, but will, emotion, 
sensibility are the material with which it works. It combines 
them all in prolific alliance. It bears its fruit in the indestruti- 
ble harvest of sweet and beautiful souls. In this sense, it is its 
own end, self-sufl&cing and final. To possess it is to realize the 
chief good of life. Nor is it merely the aspiration for indivi- 
dual perfection. Resting on the benign principle that we are 
members one of another, and that the perfection of humanity, 
as it is the aspiration for one eternal truth and beauty, can on- 
ly be realized in the unity of one body, culture is not selfish 



— 14 — 

but social, not exclusive but comprehensive, not individual but 
catholic."* 

Yea ! catholic in more senses than one. Culture in order to 
attain its true end and force in a social catholicity, must first 
and above all receive its proper emphasis in a personal catho- 
licity. The whole man in the individual must receive special 
care. As Montaigne expresses the sentiment, "Our work is not 
to train a soul by itself alone, nor a body by itself alone, but 
to train a man.^'' Every part of our divinely endowed being 
should be harmoniously developed in order to attain a well- 
rounded character. Henry Drummond, in his blunt but naive way, 
defines a "prig" as a creature that is overfed for its size, and 
remarks, "one sometimes finds men of this species, — overfed on 
one side of their nature, but dismally thin and starved-looking on 
another." Character is a unity and all the capacities or powers 
must advance together to make the perfect man. 

Even the body, the temple of the soul's habitation, although 
it be the lowest side of our complex organism, is worthy of a 
special care and culture. It is the man of tough and enduring 
physical fibre, of elastic nerve and muscle, of comprehensive di- 
gestion and pure blood, who is most likely to do the great work of 
life. Theodore Parker was loaded with erudition, but exclaimed 
on his premature death-bed, "Oh, that I had known the art of life, 
or found some book, or some man to tell me how to live, to 
study, to take exercise." '■'■Mens sana in sano corpore,^^ although a 
maxim of heathen wisdom, is an aphorism still needed by every 
Christian generation. 

"Mind sits a queen in creation," but it is only mind cul- 
tured, and so cultured as to realize the absolute necessity of 
swaying her scepter in obedience to Him who is "King of kings 
and Lord of lords," so that she may apprehend all knowledge 
as an organic kingdom pervaded throughout by the unity of 
law, order, and harmony ; that truth is to be found in that or- 
ganic kingdom of knowledge alone, in which the unity of the 
ideal and the real world is solved in the absolute being of Him, 
who has stood among men and, in wonderful self-assertion, 
has declared, "I am the Truth." True thinking is, therefore, 
the intellectual activity of ideal manhood, the law of whose be- 
ing is in unison with the Divine and eternal Logos, the Christ 
of human history, who is the absolute ideal of humanity in every 
particular. The more completely we can grow into that sphere 
of conscious activity, the more will our thinking radiate from 
the true centre of the Universe, and the more shall we be 



<'Rev, J. Lewis Diman, D. D. "Orations andEssays," p. 80 et seq. 



— 15 — 

raised to the true stand-point from which alone, without bias 
or prejudi%, a survey of the whole field of knowledge is only- 
possible. 

This possibility, however, involves the imperative necessity 
of the special culture of another, and a still higher side in 
the life of the human soul, the moral and spiritual. "The logi- 
cal, or scientific faculty, is not the highest exercise of the human 
reason. The knowledge of the highest things, those which most 
deeply concern us, is not attained by mere intellect, but by the 
harmonious action of understanding, imagination, feeling, or 
heart, conscience, and will, that is the whole man. This is reason 
in its highest exercise, intelligence raised to its highest power ; 
and it is to this exercise of reason we are called"* in the culture 
of an ideal manhood. The will of man is the summit of his char- 
acter, just as the heart is at its centre, and the understanding is at 
its base. The will is the royal faculty, which controls the aflfec- 
tions on the one side, and the intellect on the other. Just as 
man rules all else in nature by virtue of his intellectual sovereign- 
ty, so the will rules all else in man himself. Hence, the highest 
culture of our moral and spiritual being involves a special disci- 
pline of the regnant faculty of the will. 

There is, however, still another field of man's nature, which 
must not lie uncultured, if he is ever to realize the full concep- 
tion of his being, and reach his exalted destiny. This is the po- 
tential capacity to apprehend the Beautiful, as well as the True 
and the Good. He needs an aesthetical culture, a culture that 
will bring all the powers of intelligence, feeling and will into 
the harmony of a yet broader unity. To be able, with Words- 
worth, to see that mysterious something in "the meanest flow- 
er that blows," which can give "thoughts that often lie too 
deep for tears ;" to be able to discern the sublimity of Niagara; 
to have "the sense of the Infinite suggested and awakened by 
the vast expanse of restless and uneasy waters ;" or to stand 
upon the beach and catch the symphony as old Ocean hymns his 
deep-toned base in the melody of nature ; to be able to appre- 
ciate the ideal of creative genius as it is depicted upon the can- 
vass, or embodied in the marble ; — in fine to possess the ex- 
quisite taste so as to be able to recognize that "a thing of beauty" 
everywhere, in nature and in art, is "a joy forever," this is indeed 
a great gain, and distinguishes the truly cultured man from 
the great majority. 

And, how shall this end of a fully rounded, catholic cul- 
ture be attained? The process of education is absolutely essen- 



*Priiicipal J. C. Shairp in "Culture and Religion," p. 72. 



— 16 — 

tial, an education broad and liberal in the genuine sense, 
an education that starts at our mother's knee, and goes forward 
through the family, through the schools, and through the practi- 
cal life of manhood and womanhood, whose earthly curriculum, 
in fact, is terminated only with the grave ; an education, in which 
the latent susceptibilities of the soul are excited into activity by 
being brought into contact and communion with the cultured 
world of mind already in existence, as that confronts us through 
the force of the living teacher, and the wisdom of the ages embod- 
ied in literature, science and art. The ultimate design of this 
process is to draw the man out of the chaos of his low and native 
individualism, and raise him into the more harmonious and freer 
life of a higher and nobler humanity. As Prof. Taylor Lewis so 
tersely puts it, "It lifts the man out of the spirit of the age, 
which is sometimes a very narrow thing, into the spirit of the 
ages. It guards him against the delusions of the vox populi, by 
turning his ear to hear, and his heart to understand the vox hu- 
manitatis, that 'still small voice,' which ever remains as the onflow- 
ing residum after the froth and turbulence, the earthquake, fire 
and storm, of each succeeding age have passed by." 

Now, even to approximate this high-toned intellectual, moral 
and spiritual culture, this is a work, this is a labor indeed. The 
experience of the ages, if it has been worth anything in teaching 
men wisdom, has taught us that to this temple of learning there is 
no royal road. Herein, is the maxim eminently true, "He that 
loveth his life shall lose it ; and he that hateth his life in this world 
shall keep it unto life eternal." The only pathway is that of pa- 
tient, energetic, persevering toil which leads to development 
and permanent growth, in which, each in its season, are brought 
forth "first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the 
ear." Culture, in the only correct and safe sense of the term, then, 
is the result of a process of discipline mental, moral, and spiritual. 
It comes not all at once, fully formed and fixed, like Athena from 
the brain of Jove, but little by little : a short step at a time. It 
is not a thing that can be picked up or can be gotten by doing 
what one pleases. It comes only through the protracted exer- 
cise of all our faculties toward given ends, under restraints of some 
kind, whether imposed by ourselves, or by others. In fact, it 
might not improperly be called the art of doing easily what 
one don't like to do. It is the breaking in of all our powers to the 
service of the will ; and the man who has gotten it is not sim- 
ply a person who knows a good deal (for he may know compara- 
tively little), but a man who has obtained an accurate estimate of 
his own capacity, the capacity of his fellow-men, and of those 
who have gone before him ; one who is aware of the nature and 



extent of his relations to the world about him, and who is, at 
the same time, capable of using his powers to the very best ad- 
vantage. In short, the man of culture is the man who has formed 
his ideals through the growth of toil and self-denial. The gate 
to this temple of a genuine culture is so strait, and the way is 
so narrow, not because culture, or knowledge, itself makes 
them so, but because the impedimenta are in ourselves. It is 
the original chaos of the soul, as yet not completely subject to 
order, it is our native indolence and sloth, it is our uncouth 
and untutored minds, it is our undisciplined mental powers, 
and, above all, it is the vanity of our self-conceit that must 
be overcome. Only as we lose these qualities of our ignoble 
self do we find a higher life, and a nobler intellectual, moral 
and spiritual manhood. 

And the curriculum laid down by the wisdom of the ages, 
as the surest as well as the safest instrumentality to deliver 
the soul out of its original chaos and to polish it of its native 
rudeness, for the true student, who by the freedom of his will 
heartily responds to this challenge from the world of mind 
above him, although it may be in a slow, plodding and painful 
growth, is not without its desired fruits. It has stood the test of 
time and experience, and has not been found wanting. The 
tendency to ignore, or rule out, more and more the classical 
features in the curriculum of collegiate studies, in order to sub- 
stitute purely phenomenal and elective branches, with all due 
deference to the judgment of any who may think otherwise, in 
my humble opinion, is a departure in the wrong direction. Where 
is the utility, we are sometimes asked in a plea of this charac- 
ter, in the continuous study of languages that are dead, as well 
as the nationalities that once used them? But stop and con- 
sider, ere you yield your assent too readily to this line of reason- 
ing, and you will, most likely, be able to detect some inaccuracy 
in the argument. A language does not cease to live because it 
ceases to be spoken. "Are not the ancient classics life of our 
modern life? A part of our heritage from the ages, are they 
not an indefeasible possession? We cannot get rid of Greece 
and Rome, even if we would. The phraseology of Latin is 
wrought into our mother tongue." Its influence is still living in 
our thought, our feeling, our institutions, our laws and our policy. 
In studying it, therefore, we are studying our own tongue in its 
sources, and getting all the discipline and nutrition of mind which 
flow from the study of the origin and history of words. "The 
scientific vocabulary of English is studded with Greek words. The 
whole body of our literature is penetrated with allusions taken 
from the Latin and Greek classics. The traditions of those an- 



— 18 — 

cient nationalities encounter us in our modern life almost at 
every turn. They have marked out the course we have taken. 
They have dug out our channels of thought and action. We 
build on Greek lines of architecture; we march on Roman 
highways of law ; we follow Greek and Roman patterns of politi- 
cal and social life. Not to understand these forces, these norms, 
is not to understand ourselves."* 

While the student is passing through this process of disci- 
pline in ancient classical and mathematical lore, he may, it is 
true, in his narrow vision, see very little of practical utility to 
come out of it, but time will correct all that. He may, indeed, 
forget the little Latin and less Greek which he has learned, he 
may become rusty in the severe reasoning of the mathematics, 
but the mental states and attitude, the harmony and order in ha- 
bits of thought, the texture and strength of mind which the 
ordeal of this discipline has afforded him have not passed away. 
In Philosophy, that "etherial mistress of all sciences," he 
may not be able perhaps to remember the peculiar tenets of all 
the schools which have arisen, flourished for awhile, and then 
have disappeared from among men, yet even here his growth of 
toil has not been in vain. From her azure heights. Philoso- 
phy, particularly when she has been baptized with the spirit 
of Him, who once sat among the lawyers and doctors of Jerusa- 
lem, both hearing them and asking them questions, stoops to 
lead the diligent student through her transcendental mazes into 
the love of truth for its own sake, and raises him more and more 
to that regal position from which, with unclouded vision, he 
may be able to see the true connection of all science. 

All this, however, is the fruit only of years of growth. The 
histories of literature, science, art and philosophy afford exam- 
ples almost innumerable. Indeed very few productions of the 
mind, worthy of immortality, have been produced save by the 
payment of this price. We are delighted with an elegant piece 
of composition, or stand in admiration before a master-piece of 
art, but we are apt to forget that it may be the fruit of years 
of patient, yea almost despairing, toil. When a lady once asked 
Turner, the painter, what his secret was, his answer was, "I 
have no secret, madam, but hard work. Labor is the genius 
which changes the world from ugliness to beauty, and the great 
curse to a great blessing." Verily ! it is Bishop Butler giving 
twenty years to his Analogy ; and Gibbon twenty years to The 
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; it is Kant working half 
a century in the mines of metaphysics ; it is Sir Isaac Newton 



*"E8says and Studies, Educational and Literary" by B. L. Qildersleeve, Bal- 
timore, Md., 1890— page 44. 



I 



■ — 19 — 

re-writing^O/ironoJogr^/ seventeen times, and Adam Smith toiling 
ten years over The Wealth of Nations,— these are the men, and 
such as they, who do the work which stands the test of time, and 
which the ages honor. Through such culture humanity grows. 
I am well aware that this theory of growth, through years 
of discipline and high culture, goes counter to many of the 
methods employed by the currenl and more popular educational 
theories of today. Is it not a palpable fact that a good deal of 
the culture of this generation, in this country especially, knows 
but comparatively little, if anything, of growth through toil, 
in its workings, either in labor, or in time ? Indeed for all solid 
growth by the slow pathway of a genuine culture, it ofttimes 
does not conceal its supreme contempt. This is an age of 
steam and electricity, we are told; we need a fast course of 
training in everything, and, consequently, the tendency to apply 
the principle of high pressure to almost every sphere of human 
activity,— alas, too often in the sphere of education, just where 
the factors of patience, toil and time cannot be ignored without 
pernicious results— is too apparent. A kind of smattering of 
all sorts of knowledge, some taste for reading and for art, taken 
together pass with quite a large body of slenderly equipped 
persons as "culture," giving them an unprecedented self-confi- 
dence in dealing with all the problems of life, and raise them 
in their own estimation to a plane on which they see nothing 
higher, greater, better than themselves. The mischievous re- 
sults of such a pseudo-culture may be easily estimated. A so- 
ciety of ignoramuses, who know they are ignoramuses, might 
lead a tolerably happy and even useful existence, but a society 
of ignoramuses, each of whom thinks he is a Solon, would be 
an approach to Bedlam let loose. May not something analogous 
to this be seen today in some parts of this fair land? Under the 
influence of false systems of education, together with the rapid 
acquisition of wealth, a body of persons, by no means small, has 
arisen, who are not only enjoying themselves after their own 
fashion, but who firmly believe that they have reached, in the 
matter of social, mental and moral culture, all that is to be at- 
tained, or desired ; and who therefore tackle all the problems of 
the day, men's, women's and children's rights and duties, mar- 
riage, education, suflFrage, life, death, immortality, with supreme 
indifference to what any body else thinks, or has ever thought ; 
and who, moreover, have their own prophets, heroes, poets, 
orators, scholars, and philosophers, whom they worship with 
a kind of barbaric fervor. And what shall the harvest be ? Nay, 
what is the harvest already ? A kind of mental and moral chaos, 
or upheaval, in which many of the fundamental rules of living, 



— 20 — 

which have been painfully wrought out by thousands of years 
of bitter human experience seem, at times, in imminent risk of 
totally disappearing. And still more, a fearful harvest of moral 
corruption is threatened to be reaped, in high as well as low 
places among us, within the sacred precincts of the family, in 
communities, in the state, and, saddest of all, in the church, 
which, however fearful the corruption and darkness of any 
particular age may be, should ever be "the salt of the earth," 
as well as "the light of the world." And what is the true in- 
wardness of many of these social evils ? Is not the narrow and 
shallow foundation of much of the so-called "culture" of the day 
largely responsible? We want to eat bread, to be sure, but to 
eat it according to heaven's ordained law, in the sweat of our 
face, that is apparently just what many do not want. They seem 
to want a royal road to every thing, forgetting, as John Ruskin, 
in his quaint way, observes, that "there are, in fact, no royal 
roads to any where worth going to ; that if there were, it would 
that instant cease to be worth going to. No cheating, nor bar- 
gaining, will ever get a single thing out of nature's establishment 
at half price." 

"We hear much about an education suited to the times. 
But an education truly suited to the times is not such an edu- 
cation as the times ask for, an education that flatters our 
overweening conceit of material progress, that drives us with 
new force along the path on which we are already rushing 
with rail-road speed: we need rather a corrective for this dis- 
temper ; a power that shall struggle with these debilitating in- 
fluences, and strengthen our civilization at those points where 
it is most weak. Culture should lead, not follow. That indefinite 
tribunal which goes under the convenient designation of 'public 
sentiment' has no right to meddle with these high matters. 
'The end of education,' says Richter, 'is to elevate above the spirit 
of the age.' "■• 

And, in conclusion. Gentlemen of the Board of Regents, be- 
lieving that this subject of a healthy growth in manhood and 
womanhood, in institutions and civilization, which is to be re- 
alized through genuine culture only, is one in which you feel 
a deep interest, in common with myself, by virtue of the very 
office which you here fill, as well as the responsible trust of a 
growing institution of learning committed to your care, I accept 
the office into which I have now formally been inducted by 
your authority. I feel assured, further, that the views which I 
have thus so imperfectly expressed on this vital theme are in 
perfect accord with your own. Yea, if I am at all conversant 

*l)iman : "Orations and Essays," pp. 97 and 98. 



— 21 — 

with the history of this institution, which is now our common 
interest, was it not founded on this comprehensive idea of cul- 
ture, that it is not something intellectual merely, but something 
that covers man's whole nature ? In the prospectus of the annual 
catalogue of the institution I find this terse but weighty sen- 
tence, which is the text that has, at least partially, suggested 
my theme : "The education at which the institution aims is 
that of the whole man, and the Christian scholar is its true ideal." 
In all your deliberations and legislation, ever keep in mind, and 
cling, with unswerving devotion, to that original idea of the 
founders. It has the right ring and right trend for all true 
methods in the educational movements of this age. A grand 
heritage is ours. Let us enter in and take possession. No other 
institution of learning, at least in the Reformed Church, me- 
thinks, has more auspicious opportunities. Humanity is mov- 
ing onward to a higher plane of life and growth, and humanity 
is a thing that is larger and greater than individual men. Will 
we move with it, or will we retard all true progress ? Remember 
that all inspirations are vital, and the movement of a true 
growth will go forward without us, as well as with us. It is 
only living things, and living men that have the power of growth. 
If we are alive to the highest wants and necessities of the age, 
we enter with the Master to the feast ; if we are dead to these 
wants and necessities we shall be brushed aside as useless. 
"The one shall be taken, the other left." A fossil may be 
beautiful in itself, but its intrinsic value in the living present 
may be significant only as a specimen of a species perhaps 
extinct. The golden age in the dream of a pagan civilization 
was always in the past, but the golden age of a Christian civil- 
ization lies in the future. All the weary march of the race yi. 
can surely not be for nothing. All the blood shed, the!oTr,'the^^ 
struggles, the tears, the aspirations of humanity cannot fail. 
The Earth shall yet hang luminous in the smile of God. Let us 
take heed lest a false conservatism may rob us of the immortal 

crown that awaits all genuine ev olution. _ _ ^ 

Of me, and my coll^^es in the Faculty, you uam expect 
that the republic of letters shall receive no detriment. We 
accept the trust, responsible as it is, but the engagement is a 
mutual one. To you must we look for guidance, continued 
moral support, and wise counsels. May this mutual trust and 
confidence henceforth be fully realized, and may our united pur- 
pose ever be to make this institution still more worthy of the 
church and of the world. Let us mutually realize this ideal of 
culture, and that itself will be genuine growth. To be a man 
in "the Federation of the world," that new earth of the com- 



— 22 — 

ing golden age, wherein Righteousness shall be the reigning 
law, is more than to be a king in some "pent up Utica." To 
follow daily in the footsteps of "The first true Gentleman that 
ever breathed ;" and to bow profoundly at the hallowed cross of 
Him, 

"Who taught mankind 

What 't is to be a man, — to give, not take ; 

To serve, not rule ; to nourish, not devour ; 

To lift, not crush ; if need to die, not live,—" 

this is to have the only culture worth having, as well as the true 
secret of success in life, and the certain hope of victory at last. 




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